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ATENT OFFICE.

GEORGE \V. SCOLLAY, OF NEWV YORK, N. Y.

PROCESS OF TREATING COTTON-SEED OIL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 474,864, dated May 17,1892. Application filed July 12, 1887. Serial No. 244,112. (Nospecimens) T0 aZZ whom it may concern.-

l 3e it known that I, GEORGE W. SCOLLAY, a citizen of the United States,at present residing in the city, county, and State of New York, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in the Art of TreatingCotton- Seed Oil and other Similar Vegetable Oils for the Purpose ofRefining Them; and I do hereby declare the following to be such a clear,concise, and exact description of my invention as to enable any oneskilled in the arts to which it appertains or with which it is mostnearly connected to make and use the same.

My invent-ion consists of an improved method of refining cotton-seed andanalogous oil; and its objectis to make a superior quality of refinedoil. I have discovered that certain ochers such as hematite and limoniteor any similar pigment which does not injure the oil as an article offood-may be used for and are valuable agents in refining vegetable oils,such as cotton-seed oil. Suitable ocher, when properly manipulated andprepared for use, mixed and agitated with such oil in certain propor.

tions take up the gum, resin, and coloring-matter contained in the oilwhich may be separated from the oil, thus purifying and refining it.

In the practice of my inventionI may either employ said ochers alone asthe refining agent, or I may employ in connection with them othermaterials by mixing said materials with the ocher and treating the oilwith this mixture or by employing such materials as a preliminary orsubsequent treating agent before or after the oil has been treated withthe ocher.

Among the various methods which I may employ in the practice of mypresent invention the following maybe enumerated as illustrations: Iprepare the ocher by first evaporating or removing all uncombined water,and when the yellow ocher is used I continue the during until theocherassumes an orange color, and in the use of sienna and umbers Icontinue the heat or drying until the umber assumes a deep-brown color,and the sienna until it assumes a light-red color.

In the drying of the ocher, which is to be used to refine the oil, careshould be taken not to continue the heat until all of the constitutionalwater is removed, as in that case it will not so effectually remove thecoloring-matter of the oil. \Vhen the ocher has been thus prepared, itis made as fine as possible. I then take the cotton-seed oil of commerceand mix with it the aforesaid ocher, varying the proportions from fourto twelve parts of oil to one part of ocher, according to the amount ofthe impurities contained in the oil. I then agitate briskly the combinedoil and ocher for forty minutes.

As soon as the combined oil and ocher has been snfficiently I agitatedand the refining completed, the oil may be separated from the ocher bymeans of any suitable filter-press, or it may be left to settle fortwenty-four hours and then drawn off, leaving only the residuum to befiltered, which, as it comes from the press, is a stiff paste of ocher,oil, and its impurities in the form of a cake. A modified form of thisprocess consists of grinding together in the first instance in anordinary paint-mill, for instance, the ocher and cottonseed oil, innecessary proportions to insure a thorough purification ofthe oil uponits delivery from the filter-press. In so far as the refining of the oilis concerned there is but little difference in the result of thetwomethods. In the practice of the process the temperature of the oilshould be keptat about summer heat.

In some classes or varieties of the oil, notably thosein which the oilhas undergone more or less change by taking oxygen and is heavilycharged with free fatty acids and other impurities, I prefer in thepractice of my said invention to employ the following method: I reducethe ocher to a fine powder and take about ten per cent. of the amount tobe used and put with it from one-half of one percent. to one and a halfper cent. of the oil dry caustic soda or biborate of soda, in afinelypowdered state. I mix this with the oil to be refined and agitateit briskly from ten to fifteen minutes. I then add about twice theweight of soda orof chloride of calcium injust enough water to dissolveit, and continue the agitation for ten or fifteen minutes longer. I nowadd the balance of the ocher necessary to complete the refining andagitate for from ten to fifteen minutes longer, keeping the temperatureat about summer heat. The oil is then ready for the filter. In thismethod it is not necessary to dry the ocher before it is used as abovedescribed.

Various other means of practicing my present invention may obviously beemployed without departing from its spirit'or scope. For instance,instead of using ocher alone or ocher in combination with othermaterial, I may form the ocher in the oil itself and use it as arefining agent after it is so formed. For example, each ounce of oil tobe refined may be treated with an aqueous solution of four grains ofchloride of iron and four grains of either chloride of calcium orchloride of alumina, from which an ocheris subsequently precipitated bythe addition of an alkalias, for instance, soda-ash. um resulting fromthe action of the alkali is in solution, and is therefore subsequentlyseparated from the paint-stock with the oil.

In the case of cotton-seed oil the presence of chloride of sodium insolution would not in-- jure it as an article of food. If, however, itis desired to remove the chloride of sodium from the cotton-seed orother vegetable oil it may be done by simple washing-that is to I say,by adding water to the oil, thoroughly agitating the mixture, and thenpermittingit to stand until by reason of the different spe cificgravities of the oil and brine they separate, when the oil may be drawnoff. The

The chloride of sod methods and modifications which may be employed isnot considered necessary here.

My invention includes the use of any of that class of ochers 0r pigmentsthat will remove the color and impurities from the oil, and it includes,also, the treatment of other vegetable oils as well as cotton-seed oil,such as linseed, poppy-seed, and similar oils for the same purpose.

I am aware of the contents of the British provisional specification ofBenjamin Fullwood, No. 1,211 of 1855 .and thatin such specification theuse of ochers in connection with other substances is mentioned as amaterial to be used in the purification of certain volatile matters inlieu of distillation, such as bydrocarbons, turpentine, and naphtha. Ido not, therefore, claim, broadly, the use of ocher as a refining agentfor any and all matters; but I confine my claims to the use of ocher asa purifying agent in cotton-seed and analogous oils.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim, and desire to secureby Letters Patent, is

1. The process of refining cotton-seed and analogous oils, consisting inbringing the oil in intimate contact with ocher and then separating therefined oil and the ocher carrying the impurities.

2. The process of refining cotton-seed and analogous oils, whichconsists in drying ocher and bringing the dried ocher and oil inintimate contact and then separating the refined Oil and the ochercarrying the impurities.

GEO. W. SCOLLAY. Witnesses.- i

J. EDGAR BULL, ROBERT BARTLETT.

